If we take the northbound train, we will meet a set of people and experiences. If we take the southbound train, we will meet a different set of people and experiences. Even the view outside would be entirely different in these directions and from either side of the cabin we chose to sit. We are given the freedom of choice to exercise our free will. We are not fated to take only one road. There are multiple choices, as in the multiple choice examination. Our choice and preference then determine our destiny. Thus, we make our destiny. One single decision or move could change our lives and the lifetime of events and happenings.
When I went for my very first Nadi reading, taking a print of my thumb, the Nadi reader came back with three stacks of palm leaves. Going through a session of questions and answers, we both sat to verify the details on each leaf and identify if its content was pertinent to me, if it described me, or if it was relevant to me. Finding no leaf that I could claim to be talking about me in the first two stacks, we came to the third, where, towards the bottom of the stack, was one that described in brief, me, my parents, my siblings, my career, and my assets correctly. I thought that we had located my Nadi finally when my wife's name was read out as Manohari. It was not true. It was not mine. So the question then and now is, who is this individual with the same name and a similar description, except that he is married to one Manohari? Was there another clone of me walking around, but married to Manohari?
Telling me that ethically, he could only look through three stacks at any one time, he asked me to come in a couple of weeks. After browsing through the first few leaves, I accepted a leaf as mine, and I was asked to come again for a complete reading, which I did. Surprisingly, in the midst of my third visit to the Nadi reader, he stopped reading the Nadi and left the table. I could hear him ring the bells and pray in the adjacent room before he came back to continue the reading. I never asked him why. Neither did he tell me the reason for taking the break.
I suppose that many souls are waiting to meet us in person, and events waiting to unfold, if we decide to take a particular path. If we choose otherwise, a new set of cards is placed before us, and our lives take on a new meaning. Life is full of choices. If I had gone to a different school and college, taken up a different career, married someone else, lived in another housing estate, etc., my life would have been different. Would I be at peace, contented, and satisfied as I am now?